Life
by idioticonion
Summary: AU from Miracles. What if Ted wasn't Barney's emergency contact when the bus hit him? What if Ted never forgave him?


**Life**

He wakes to a cacophony of pain, running in jagged jolts under his skin, in his bones. He wakes, limp as a broken doll, eyes smarting against the light.

When Barney wakes up in hospital, he is alone.

At first, his mind is confused. He can't speak, can't move, can barely even breathe. In fact, he fears suffocation more than anything else, because his limbs are weighed down by casts and he can't so much as scratch his own nose if he wanted to.

He doesn't remember much.

There are some visitors to his bedside. The occasional nurse, breezing in with quiet footfalls and checking the beeping machine at his bedside. Sometimes, when he's suspended in the horrific limbo of pain and drugged nightmares, he imagines he sees his brother James, bending down over him, a look of ragged disappointment on his face.

It's a long while before he speaks. At least, he feels it's a long while but maybe it's weeks, maybe months.

With the pain from his broken bones and the countless operations, it feels like years. In solitude, trapped in the prison of his own company, it feels like decades.

It's a long time to think, in those weeks. Too long.

And then, when he finally can talk, there are suddenly people to deal with - cops, insurance brokers, people from his work. After longing for human contact for so long, the presence of all these new faces terrifies him.

He begs them to let him go free, but there are certain considerations before they do. He must regain the use of his hands, for example. There are cognitive tests. Barney rages, again and again, telling them he can afford a nurse, that they'll see better progress if they let him go. Don't they trust him? Do they think he'll hit the booze the second he walks through the front door.

The doctor laughs at that. He can barely shuffle more than a few steps on the treadmill, even with help.

Finally, three months after he was admitted into hospital, the doctor finally signs his release papers.

"Is there someone I can call to come and pick you up?" A nurse asks him. "Friends? Family?"

He doesn't answer, but the question spikes through him, like a deep twinge of pain from his barely-healed injuries.

And just because he can talk, could answer her if he chose, it doesn't mean he has to.

*--*--*

The fortress of Barnitude.

Even the name seems facile to him now. The place echoes, empty except for ghosts; grey in tone and meaning. His former home feels lifeless to him now.

There are certain considerations that drive him with cold logic, a structure to cling on to in the times when everything gets too much for him to bear. As fall gives way to winter and the cold plays havoc with his healing bones, it feels like every day is a battle for survival.

The things that used to fill his days - the hedonistic pleasures of booze and women and crazy schemes, they feel alien to him now. He puts up a front at work because work is part of his structure, part of the pale skeleton that keeps him from imploding.

Bars terrify him. Traffic terrifies him. He distrusts everyone around him, which makes him way sharper than he's ever been where his job is concerned. They give him a promotion, he thinks maybe out of some kind of misplaced guilt. After everyone's given him their sympathy and wished him well, they largely ignore him. It's surprising how easy it is to fade into the background when you stop trying so hard to be the centre of attention.

Those that seek him out, usually want something out of him. There's one time, where he hooks up with Billson's hot new secretary and it goes horribly off track when she asks him about his scars, some still pink, some just white lines.

The next day, he goes and gets a spray-on tan and joins a new gym.

The day after, he visits a new tailor, a new barber, he smartens himself up.

He erects the scaffolding, but he has no idea what to build in place of his old life.

*--*--*

In the winter, his firm carries out a hostile takeover of a failing bank. Barney is one of the team chosen to go in and shake the place up.

He sells his place in Yorkville and buys a loft on the upper west side. Everywhere, businesses are failing so it's easy to snap up the new apartment.

Marshall gets a job at the bank, and of course he acts kind of awkwardly around him.

There are so many things Barney wants to say to him, so much bile he'd like to get out into to open.

Instead, he hears that Ted has gotten married to Stella and that Robin has lost her job. He doesn't seek out the information, but instead is the passive recipient.

Marshall seems pleased to see him, seems to think that working together will be fun.

Of course, what he doesn't realize is that "fun" is just an empty word, just another emotion that was taken when the bus hit him. Even though he doesn't say anything, Barney can tell that Marshall picks this up. The big guy tells him he looks great, that it feels like years since they last saw each other.

Barney could point out the obvious, that he hasn't seen Marshall since just before Ted's 30th birthday, and that he's been in hospital all summer.

That Marshall never once came to visit him.

That none of them did.

He guesses he always knew that Ted's friendship was more important to them all. He just wishes Ted hadn't made them all choose.

*--*--*

There's a terrible snowstorm in January, and Barney practically lives at work during that time, sleeping on his sofa instead of heading home. Commuting from his apartment is torture, even wearing thermal underwear and a heavy-wool suit.

Nobody notices. He's always the last to leave, the first to arrive.

One night, he has his own lock-in, just him and a bottle of 30 year old scotch, and for the first time in his life he starts to question if this is still what he wants.

When the snow begins to thaw, he has sex with one of the paralegals on his desk. She's been making cow-eyes at him for weeks. The irony is that she says he's "mysterious". He laughs, because he still feels like he's an open book. But he also feels like he's making one last-ditch attempt, one last effort, to bring back some of The Barnacle. The him before the bus wrecked his body.

He's still trying to live his old life, somehow. But it's chafing more and more.

*--*--*

"Okay, I'll do it," Barney answers Marshall, settling back in his leather chair. "I'll help you this one time. But after this, no more. Please don't contact me again."

"That might be a little hard, man," Marshall says with an uncertain smile. He looks relieved, like Barney's the answer to all his worries. Like Barney has the magic solution. "I mean," Marshall stumbles over his words, "we work together. I'll see you around."

Barney's already typing on his computer, fixing things, solving things. Maybe he owes Marshall this.

Even now, even after everything, Barney still feels like he was in the wrong. If sleeping with Robin wasn't a bad thing, then why would they have all turned their backs on him so completely?

Under his breath, Barney says, "I've handed in my notice, man. I'm leaving next week."

Marshall looks surprised. "Oh, right? Where are you moving to?"

Barney ignores him. It's none of his goddamn business.

Marshall shuffles from foot to foot, not sure if he should leave or not. "Barney… I'm sorry," he says quietly. "For everything that happened."

Of course it hurts. Barney's eyes sting, his mouth goes dry, and he tries not to hear the catch in Marshall's voice.

Anger should be the only emotion he feels right now. Anger that Marshall could say such things when he doesn't feel sorry at all. If any of them felt sorry, they wouldn't have left him to suffer. They wouldn't have condemned him to this hell, this half-life.

It's that, more than anything, that convinces Barney that leaving GNB is the right thing to do.

"None of us want Robin to be deported," Marshall rambles on, missing the cue that now would be a good time to leave gracefully. "I mean, if you _can_ help, you always seem to know a guy." Marshall gulps. "None of us could stand to lose her, you know? She's like family."

Barney's fingers freeze over the keyboard of his computer and he slowly looks up, meeting Marshall's eye with a cold, dead weight in his head.

"None of us could stand to lose her," Marshall says.

Yet they were quite happy to let Barney go.

*--*--*

Weirdly, the experience with Shannon is what helps make him stronger in the coming months. As spring moves into summer and the anniversary of the bus accident, Barney feels more and more phlegmatic about his old life, his old friends.

There are ways to deal with betrayal, with abandonment. You can let it define you, let it harden you, let it close you off from the world. Or you can come to terms with it.

Manhattan is a big place, and over time, Barney allows himself to connect with a couple of guys at his new job. He even goes on a couple of dates. He's upfront when he tells people he's not looking for love, not looking to settle down. But weirdly, when he talks candidly about his life, about his situation, it doesn't seem to put the women off.

Maybe they want to change him.

Barney finds his thought processes moving and shifting. He slows down a little and learns to savour life, his job, his new friends. He finds that without the constant battle for approval, to be accepted, that he naturally gravitates to a different sort of crowd.

He meets Molly at a dinner party held by his CEO and he dates her for three months.

Then one day, when he's out in central park, playing a little softball with some guys from his new apartment building, he runs into Robin.

The world tilts and his bones, which haven't ached since April, throb with sharp splinters of bright pain.

*--*--*

Not once, not one whole time since he woke up in agony after the bus hit him, not once has he wished he'd never woken up at all.

Not once has he wished for death.

Yet today, seeing Robin Scherbatsky again, all Barney wants is sweet oblivion.

His heart leaps, beats, moves in a way it never has for Molly, or the handful of women he's been with since the bus crash.

At first, he hopes that Robin won't approach him, won't talk to him. But then she gives him an embarrassed wave and comes over.

Shielding his eyes from the bright sunshine, he cries off the game, to the protests of his fellow players, and follows Robin over to the stone bridge, where he motions for her to sit down.

He wishes with all his heart that she wasn't here, hadn't seen him. It hurts him too much to remember.

"You stopped updating your blog," is the first thing she says.

It's such a non sequitur that he blinks in confusion before he realizes what she's talking about.

"You moved jobs, and apartments and you disappeared," Robin continues, making it sound like his fault. "Even Marshall didn't know where you'd gone." She sounds angry.

He doesn't say anything. What can he say? How can he defend himself against this unexpected attack?

In the absence of any protests or explanation, Robin goes quiet.

"None of us knew you were in hospital until James called us," Robin says, "And then he said it was better if we didn't come. I tried…" She huffs out a quick breath and he glances over at her. She looks too skinny, in that pale yellow sun dress. She looks like a shadow. "I never got the chance to thank you for getting my visa renewed when I lost my job."

Barney shrugs, a little embarrassed. He's always hated it when people point out his good deeds.

"You look different," Robin says with a smile. "Kinda quiet, I guess. But at least you're wearing a suit."

When he doesn't return the smile, because his heart is too full of her, and his brain is crammed with memories, she clicks her tongue in irritation.

"Please say something?"

There's so much he could say. He thinks, somehow, if he'd acted a little less like a selfish ass and if things had gone a little differently, that he could have fallen in love with her.

He thinks that maybe he's always been a little in love with her.

But she was Ted's first. She was Ted's girl and in one moment of weakness he tried to take her. In one moment, the rest of his life was fixed because he's allowed jealousy and hatred to set the course of his life.

So he just shakes his head and says, gently, "It's good to see you, Robin."

"And that's it?" She says, incredulously. "A year, and that's all you've got for me?"

It occurs to him that probably none of them think about him, or miss him, or have any idea the pain he's gone through.

How much he misses them.

So he just smiles, because he'll never be able to explain and they'll never be able to listen.

"That's all I've got," he says, and he watches her walk away.

It feels like an ending.


End file.
